Chris's Broadcast Writing Blog

It was a nightmare. 

It was the second nightmare of my young reporting career. The first was when my interview, James Gordon of the NDP, took a phone call when I was interviewing him live, LIVE on our web broadcast for the election. The story is in this blog. 

The second was doing my feature story. 

I was doing an interview with Mike Farwell, the colour commentator for the Kitchener Rangers. He was really nice, but I’m sure he’s really busy, so I wanted to make it as quick as possible, while still getting the answers I need. 

He asked if I wanted to film the interview inside the arena, and I obviously agreed, because the rink would make a great background. I made some small talk while I was setting up. I checked the buttons and glanced at the ND filter. It said 1/64, but I assured myself that it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t sure what it did anyways or where it was supposed to be. I figured the last person probably had it on the right setting. 

Forgetting about that, I made sure the audio was set up properly, did a white balance, and looked through the viewfinder. 

It was dark.

Really dark. 

Well, no big deal, because I didn’t have my light on yet. I turned on the light, looked through the viewfinder and…

It was dark.

Really dark.

Okay, that was no problem. I played with the iris, and turned it open all the way. I looked through the viewfinder.

It was dark. 

Really dark.

Still.

So, my mind raced. I had a busy man waiting here, and I needed to get it together.

We moved to the press box which was decently lit, and I looked through the viewfinder.

It was still dark. 

Really dark.

So, I did the unthinkable.

I did what Steve Parr told me never to do.

I turned the gain from low to medium.

And, I looked through the viewfinder. You guessed it, it was dark, really dark, but it was going to have to be good enough. Moving locations and the delay for my set-up (which felt hours longer than it was to me) had to end. I’d have to try to fix it in post-production unfortunately. I did the interview and got great audio, but the video was pretty ugly. 

I learned a valuable lesson that day: check the ND Filter, or your shots might be dark. 

Really dark.